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For all the Birth Mother's of Adop­tion out there...  You are loved!

With 2.2 Mil­lion adoptees in the world, and 87% from America...there are a lot of us out there!
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It is dif­fi­cult to gen­er­al­ize about the feel­ings or expe­ri­ences of all birth par­ents. Each has faced a unique expe­ri­ence and coped in his or her own way. A num­ber of birth par­ents have writ­ten per­sonal accounts of their expe­ri­ences in plac­ing their chil­dren for adop­tion; there are also a few research stud­ies of the expe­ri­ences of birth par­ents and the emo­tions that often linger long after the adop­tion. Cer­tain themes emerge in both types of lit­er­a­ture, includ­ing themes of loss, guilt, and res­o­lu­tion. As a frame­work for this dis­cus­sion, this fact­sheet explores the expe­ri­ences of birth par­ents by explor­ing some of these themes:

Table of Contents

1 — Responses to Adop­tion Placement

2 — Gain­ing Con­trol and Resolution

3 — Resources

A Birth­par­ents Manifesto

* We rec­og­nize that the unique bio­log­i­cal con­nec­tion we have with our child cre­ates a respon­si­bil­ity to them. We real­ize that we are impor­tant in the life of our child. That even though we are not par­ent­ing, our role as birth­par­ents is sig­nif­i­cant. We under­stand that as our children's birth­par­ents there are going to be ques­tions only we can answer and that our love and con­cern can never be replaced by another.

* We rec­og­nize the impor­tance of nur­tur­ing the rela­tion­ships we have with both our child and his whole adop­tive fam­ily. In doing this, we honor his con­nec­tions and real­ize that the rela­tion­ships we have with his fam­ily mem­bers ulti­mately will effect him.

* We rec­og­nize adop­tion as a life long process, and that each age and stage our child goes through brings with it it's own unique set of needs, desires and ques­tions. We are open to what that may mean to us.

* We rec­og­nize our ongo­ing involve­ment with our child is a commitment.

* We accept our child ahttp://birthmommissions.wildapricot.orgs an indi­vid­ual. We delight in who he is and who he will become.

You will notice that I specif­i­cally left out the words arrange­ment and sit­u­a­tion, com­fort and priv­i­lege. Instead I used words like com­mit­ment and respon­si­bil­ity, honor and rela­tion­ships. These are the major dis­tinc­tions between child-centered open adop­tion and open adop­tion that is based on the needs and desires of birth­par­ents and adop­tive par­ents. All of us need to be aware that words we use effect our prin­ci­ples, and ulti­mately, our actions. If birth­par­ents believe that open adop­tion is in the best inter­est of the child, if we are aware of our respon­si­bil­i­ties, if we see the con­tact we have with our child and their par­ents as a rela­tion­ship, then we will be hon­est with the adop­tive par­ents if our grief is too much, we will be there for our child, even if the answers do not come easily.

If we are told that we should do what ever we are com­fort­able with, that our involve­ment mat­ters lit­tle to the child, that vis­its and con­tact our for our ben­e­fit alone, we are more likely to silently retreat when the pain over­whelms us, when we fear the next ques­tion, to agree when our fam­ily and friends say we are only hurt­ing ourselves.